[PDF] Good Citizens Need Not Fear eBook

Author : Maria Reva
Publisher : Knopf Canada
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 28,35 MB
Release : 2020-03-10
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0735278431

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FINALIST FOR THE WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE RAKUTEN KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Bang-on brilliant." --Miriam Toews "Luminous" --Yann Martel "Outstanding." --Anthony Doerr "Bright, funny, satirical and relevant. . . . A new talent to watch!" --Margaret Atwood (via Twitter) This brilliant and bitingly funny novel-in-stories, set in and around a single crumbling apartment building in Soviet-era Ukraine, heralds the arrival of a major new talent. A cast of unforgettable characters--citizens of the small industrial town of Kirovka--populate Maria Reva's ingeniously entwined tales that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Weaving the strands of the narrative together is an unforgettable, chameleon-like young woman named Zaya: an orphan turned beauty-pageant crasher who survives the extraordinary circumstances of her childhood through a compelling combination of ferocity, intelligence, stubbornness and wit. Good Citizens Need Not Fear takes us from paranoia to tenderness and back again, exploring what it is to be an individual amid the roiling forces of history. Inspired by her family's own experiences in Ukraine, Reva brings the dark absurdity of early Gary Shteyngart, the empathy of Miriam Toews, and the sly interconnectedness of Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno to a sparkling work of fiction that is as clever as it is heartfelt.

Author : Michael Melgaard
Publisher : House of Anansi
Page : 166 pages
File Size : 11,20 MB
Release : 2020-02-04
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1487006160

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An honest and unaffected collection of human experiences that deftly tackles themes of grief, loss, missed opportunities, and the pain of letting go. The stories in Michael Melgaard’s poignant debut collection, Pallbearing, offer candid snapshots of life in a small town, where the struggle to make ends meet forces people into desperate choices. In “Little to Lose,” a son confronts his mother over the crushing prison of debt created by her gambling addiction. The aging divorcee in “Coming and Going” spends her days in paranoid pursuit of evidence with which to incriminate her neighbours in the derelict trailer park where she lives. And in “Stewart and Rose,” lifelong friends find love after their respective partners die — and then face loss all over again. With deceptively spare prose that carries outsized emotional weight and pathos, Melgaard brings his characters to life in sharp-edged portraits and all-too-human dilemmas, creating engaging stories that resonate with honesty and depth, and linger in the imagination.

Author : Thich Nhat Hanh
Publisher : Parallax Press
Page : 146 pages
File Size : 19,83 MB
Release : 2008-06-14
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1935209892

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In Good Citizens, Thich Nhat Hanh lays out the foundation for an international solidarity movement based on a shared sense of compassion, mindful consumption, and right action. Following these principles, he believes, is the path to world peace. The book is based on our increased global interconnectedness and subsequent need for harmonious communication and a shared ethic to make our increasingly globalized world a more peaceful place. The book will be appreciated by people of all faiths and cultural backgrounds. While based on the basic Buddhist teachings of the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path, Thich Nhat Hanh boldly leaves Buddhist terms behind as he offers his contribution to the creation of a truly global and nondenominational blueprint to overcoming deep-seated divisions and a vision of a world in harmony and the preservation of the planet. Key topics include the true root causes of discrimination; the exploration of the various forms of violence; economic, social, and sexual violence. He encourages the reader to practice nonviolence in all daily interactions, elaborates on the practice of generosity, and teaches the art of deep listening and loving speech to help reach a compromise and reestablish communication after misunderstandings have escalated into conflicts. Good Citizens also contains a new wording of the Five Mindfulness Trainings (traditionally called "precepts") for lay practitioners, bringing them in line with modern-day needs and realities. In their new form they are concrete and practical guidelines of ethical conduct that can be accepted by all traditions. Good Citizens also includes the complete text of the UN Manifesto 2000, a declaration of transforming violence and creating a culture of peace for the benefit of the children of the world. It was drafted by numerous Peace Nobel Prize recipients and signed by over 100 million people worldwide. Coinciding with a US presidential election year, Good Citizens reaches across all political backgrounds and faith traditions. It shows that dualistic thinking—Republican/Democrat, Christian/Muslim—creates tension and a false sense of separateness. When we realize that we share a common ethic and moral code, we can create a community that can change the world.

Author : Charlie Kaufman
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
Page : 721 pages
File Size : 28,92 MB
Release : 2021-07-06
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0399589694

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The bold and boundlessly original debut novel from the Oscar®-winning screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • “A dyspeptic satire that owes much to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon . . . propelled by Kaufman’s deep imagination, considerable writing ability and bull’s-eye wit."—The Washington Post “An astonishing creation . . . riotously funny . . . an exceptionally good [book].”—The New York Times Book Review • “Kaufman is a master of language . . . a sight to behold.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND MEN’S HEALTH B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he’s convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius. All that’s left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of “likes” and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison d’être. A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself—the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.

Author : Michael Crichton
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 817 pages
File Size : 50,65 MB
Release : 2009-10-13
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 006175272X

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New York Times bestselling author Michael Crichton delivers another action-packed techo-thriller in State of Fear. When a group of eco-terrorists engage in a global conspiracy to generate weather-related natural disasters, its up to environmental lawyer Peter Evans and his team to uncover the subterfuge. From Tokyo to Los Angeles, from Antarctica to the Solomon Islands, Michael Crichton mixes cutting edge science and action-packed adventure, leading readers on an edge-of-your-seat ride while offering up a thought-provoking commentary on the issue of global warming. A deftly-crafted novel, in true Crichton style, State of Fear is an exciting, stunning tale that not only entertains and educates, but will make you think.

Author : Juan Villoro
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 27,96 MB
Release : 2021-03-23
Category : History
ISBN : 1524748897

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At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city. Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city ’s cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today—one of the world’s leading cultural and financial centers. In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: “Living in the City,” “City Characters,” “Shocks,” “Crossings,” and “Ceremonies.” What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City’s genius loci, its spirit of place.

Author : Claudia Rankine
Publisher : Graywolf Press
Page : 165 pages
File Size : 50,14 MB
Release : 2014-10-07
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 1555973485

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* Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry * * Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism * Winner of the NAACP Image Award * Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize * Winner of the PEN Open Book Award * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, NPR. Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Slate, Time Out New York, Vulture, Refinery 29, and many more . . . A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.

Author : James Clavell
Publisher : Blackstone Publishing
Page : 83 pages
File Size : 38,74 MB
Release : 2022-11-22
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1982537663

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“What does ‘allegiance’ mean?” the New Teacher asked, hand over her heart. In this classic and chilling tale about an elementary school classroom in post-war occupied America, James Clavell brings to light the vulnerability of children and the power educators have to shape and change young minds. Originally written in the Cold War era, Clavell’s extraordinary and enduringly relevant allegory on the impressionability of the human mind is still read in schools around the globe today, and is a call to every person to keep questioning and keep learning.

Author : Conn Iggulden
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 14,48 MB
Release : 2022-03-29
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1405944048

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TWO LEGENDARY BATTLES. ONE FEARLESS WARRIOR . . . EXPERIENCE THE EPIC BATTLEFIELDS OF ANCIENT GREECE WITH MASTER STORYTELLER CONN IGGULDEN 'Brings war in the ancient world to vivid, gritty and bloody life' Anthony Riches 'Another masterpiece from Iggulden' 5***** Reader Review 'It's like being on the battlefield' 5***** Reader Review 'An epic piece of historical fiction, full of political intrigue and vivid action' Robert Fabbri ________ Themistocles stands as the battle-scarred leader of Athens. Yet he is no nobleman, and is distrusted by many. But those who stand against him cannot argue with two things: his victories as a warrior, and the vast Persian army heading their way . . . And so Themistocles must fight. Fight the invaders. Fight the allies who despise him. Fight for his city. As the Persians draw close, he must prove himself again and again in battle. Because history belongs to the courageous . . . ________ 'I was transported. I felt the Mediterranean sun on my face, smelled the sea on the air . . . Here is a master at work. There is no one better at this' GILES KRISTIAN 'Bring[s] the Greco-Persian Wars to life in brilliant detail. Thrilling' DAILY EXPRESS PRAISE FOR CONN IGGULDEN 'The pace is nail-biting and the set-dressing magnificent' Times 'Pacy . . . and packed with action' Sunday Times 'One of our finest historical novelists' Daily Express 'Iggulden is in a class of his own when it comes to epic, historical fiction' Daily Mirror

Author : Tony Tulathimutte
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 29,26 MB
Release : 2016-02-09
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 006239911X

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“Scathing, upsetting and generous all at once, this novel, about millennial friends in pre-2008-crash San Francisco, thrums with Tulathimutte’s sly intelligence and unerring comic timing. . . . The warm flashes make the satire cut deeper.” —The New York Times, “The Funniest Novels Since Catch-22” "One of the really phenomenal novels I've read in the last decade." —Jonathan Franzen From a brilliant new literary talent comes a sweeping comic portrait of privilege, ambition, and friendship in millennial San Francisco. With the social acuity of Adelle Waldman and the murderous wit of Martin Amis, Tony Tulathimutte’s Private Citizens is a brainy, irreverent debut—This Side of Paradise for a new era. Capturing the anxious, self-aware mood of young college grads in the aughts, Private Citizens embraces the contradictions of our new century: call it a loving satire. A gleefully rude comedy of manners. Middlemarch for Millennials. The novel's four whip-smart narrators—idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious Linda—are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous prose that ricochets between humor and pain, the four estranged friends stagger through the Bay Area’s maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other’s lives once again. A wise and searching depiction of a generation grappling with privilege and finding grace in failure, Private Citizens is as expansively intelligent as it is full of heart.